A road roller, also known as a soil compactor, is a type of road construction equipment, available in two main categories: steel-wheeled and wheeled. Within the broader category of construction machinery, road rollers fall under the category of road equipment and are widely used in the compaction of fill sections in large-scale engineering projects such as highways, railways, airport runways, dams, and stadiums. They can compact sandy, semi-cohesive, and cohesive soils, as well as stabilized subgrade soils and asphalt concrete pavement layers. Utilizing the force of its own weight, road rollers are suitable for various compaction operations, causing permanent deformation and densification of the compacted layer.
As early as ancient times, people used the hooves of livestock to trample, knead, and compact the soil to treat the foundations of houses and to compact dams and riverbanks. Before the mid-19th century, Western road engineering mainly used gravel paving, and compaction was mainly achieved by the natural rolling of vehicles. It was not until the invention of the stone roller in 1858 that the development of gravel pavement was promoted, and the use of horse-drawn rollers for compaction gradually appeared. This was the earliest prototype of the road roller. In 1860, the steam roller appeared in France, which further promoted and improved the construction technology and quality of gravel pavement and accelerated the progress.
